Tool Test: Veritas Bevel-up Smoothing Plane

I have never understood the modern fascination with enormous smoothing planes. We prefer big smoothers with lots of mass, long soles and wide blades. Our ancestors preferred small smoothing planes that were shorter (as small as 7″) and narrower.
Why? The little tools worked faster and were less tiring than bigger planes.
Now Veritas has introduced a new small-scale smoothing plane that pushes almost all of my buttons. Its sole is less than 9″ long x 21⁄4″ wide, enabling it to get into hollows in big panels that big smoothers struggle with. And at 2 lbs., 12 oz., it is half the weight of a modern No. 41⁄2 smoothing plane.